If you're the person in your family with the "computer smarts", then the following steps shown below are probably enough to hide those folders of love letters and jpegs from accidental discovery.

However, if you have teenagers, or, a wife who is computer literate, you can also perform these steps but we strongly recommend that you: DELETE THOSE PICs and FOLDERs NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW!!! At a minimum, e-mail them to your hotmail or Yahoo account and get them out of your computer. There are a few sites that offer folder and file protect software. However, many of the software programs merely lock up the file itself and do not hide the names of the files. So, if you are storing a pic named, "hot f&^% between 2 men", then it is rather pointless to spend $50 buying software to lock up the file itself if you didn't change the name of the file. This software also doesn't prevent the question, "Honey, what are all these jpegs and gifs that I can't open?".

We are still examining which software programs appear to both lock and hide folders from view (with encryption) and will be releasing our reviews and recommendations shortly. Until them, use the following golden rules:

If you have a zip drive, then bless you. No software is needed but add a password to your zip disk and get those files out of your computer and on to your zip disk. Right click on your zip disk and select "protect" and then "read/write protect" and enter a password. From then on, your zip disk is totally inaccessible unless one first right clicks on the zip drive icon, selects, "protect", and then, "unprotect until eject".

No zip drive and you have kids? Then why are you risking discovery by storing anything on your computer? Pornography is so accessible and you get so bored with the pics you have so quickly, why keep them on your computer? Delete them and quickly. We won't even go into the fact that deleted files can be easily recovered. That will be another topic in a few weeks. A 3.5 inch floppy won't hold much, but it's better than anything else and keeps your pics out of your main computer.

No zip drive but you want to keep the pics? So, you have a pic that you just can't part with and don't know what software to buy that can hide them. Get over it and delete them. Still can't part with it? Well, until we finish our reviews of available software, do the following. This looks long but it isn't. Once you set up your folder after performing these steps, it's only two steps to "unprotect" and "protect" your folder.

1. Immediately rename all jpegs/gifs, etc., to innocent names such as "business picnic" or just a numeral, "1", "2", etc.
2. Put all of these pics/files/subfolders into a single master folder.
3. Activate windows explorer. For many, this is merely accessing the "START" icon in the very left bottom corner of your screen and going, "START, PROGRAMS, Windows Explorer".
4. Locate the new master folder that you created which contains all those little things you'd rather anyone else not know about.
5. Right click on the folder (it will highlight in blue color and it will appear to open).
6. Select Properties. A new window pops up. This is normal.
7. Under "attributes", put a check mark in the "hidden" box. You do this by merely clicking on the box next to the word "hidden".
8. Select "apply" and then "okay".
9. You should be back to the original windows explorer screen with the file still in blue highlight and still hanging open. Now click on any other folder; doesn't matter which one, just click on it such that YOUR folder is no longer the selected folder.
10. At the top of the windows explorer window where the "FILE, EDIT, VIEW, TOOLS, and HELP" are located, select, "VIEW" and then "Options".
11. A new window pops up and you can see an area called "hidden" files. You can either select "SHOW ALL FILES" or "HIDE FILES OF THESE TYPES". Click the "HIDE FILES OF THESE TYPES" button, if not already clicked. "Apply" and then "OK".
12. There, you are finished. Notice that your "folder" has disappeared. Why? Basically you have assigned an attribute of "hidden" to the folder and then told the computer to hide all folders with the attribute of "hidden".
13. Whenever you want to "play" with your folder again, merely access windows explorer as you did earlier and repeat step 10 and 11 only but instead of selecting, "hide files of these types", select" show all files". Bam! Your folder reappears (may have to do a VIEW REFRESH to see it).
14. Just remember that when you are done playing, to go back and tell the computer to "HIDE ALL FILES" with the "hidden" attribute again (steps 10 and 11).